On April 2, 2014, UC Riverside School of Business Administration’s Distinguished Professor of Audit & Assurance, Theodore (Ted) Mock, spoke at the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) as part of the panel discussing Perspectives on the Auditor’s Reporting Model.

The PCAOB Meeting, a two-day long public meeting held in Washington D.C., gathered personnel of influence from academia, the public sector, and private sector in an effort to inform the Board on possible enhancements to the auditor’s reporting model. As part of the discussion panel, Mock summarized academic research related to the ‘expectation gap’; user perceptions as to additional auditor communications that could close the gap; and research that investigates the effects of additional auditor communications concerning financial statements on user decisions. Mock states in his formal public statement that, “Users of financial statements do not appear to carefully evaluate the current standard audit report because it is a standardized product. Users do seem to want more information on risk, materiality, and other information surrounding the specific audit. While significant research exists in many areas, there are many areas where a “research gap” exists, that is, where there seems to be a lack of sufficient research evidence.”

Over the course of a nearly two hour panel discussion, Mock and panel members Alan Beller, Partner at Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton; Douglas Skinner, the Eric J. Gleacher Distinguished Service Professor of the Booth School of Business at the University of Chicago; and Joseph Ucuzoglu, National Managing Partner at Deloitte; fielded questions from the public and other auditing and accounting professionals related to their comments in improving the auditor’s reporting model. James Doty, Chairman of PCAOB, expressed gratitude for Mock’s efforts and ideas to improve audit standards.

Mock’s participation in the recent PCAOB meeting is related to several of his research publications including his 2012 Accounting Horizons publication Perceptions and Misperceptions Regarding the Unqualified Auditor's Report by Financial Statement Preparers, Users, and Auditors, in which Mock documents the existence of an audit expectation gap among different stakeholder groups and more recently The Auditor's Reporting Model: Current Research Synthesis and Implications, 2013 Auditing: A Journal of Theory & Practice,.